WALTERS: Redistricting a sound theory yet to play out

California legislators of both parties, then-Gov. Gray Davis and
the George W. Bush White House made a pact with the political devil
nine years ago by fixing outcomes of legislative and congressional
elections for a decade.

They agreed to redraw the boundaries of 120 legislative and 53
congressional districts to declare party ownership of each, lock in
the partisan status quo and lock out real choice for voters.

Since then, through five election cycles, there have been 765
legislative and congressional elections in California and in only
about 15 of them have voters managed to overcome the intent of the
bipartisan gerrymander. That's a 98 percent success rate for the
manipulators.

It's evident why Republicans liked the deal. It protected them
against a potential partisan gerrymander by the Democrats.

Why Democrats went along with it remains something of a mystery,
but at least one reason is that it protected white Democratic
congressional members from challenges by Latinos.

When Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor in 2003, he made
redistricting reform a top priority, and finally succeeded in 2008
with a ballot measure, Proposition 11, that shifted legislative
redistricting to an independent commission.

Proposition 11 backers omitted congressional districts due to
threats from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others to kill it.

This year, wealthy Stanford University physicist Charles Munger
Jr. financed a ballot measure, Proposition 20, to place
congressional districts under the independent commission, and
Democratic congressmen and their allies countered with a measure,
Proposition 27, that would abolish the commission altogether.

Proposition 20 passed in a landslide that also buried
Proposition 27, which means the 14-member commission, now being
chosen, will redraw congressional districts, and one of
Schwarzenegger's legacy achievements will survive. It could not
only affect California's political tenor for decades to come, but
national politics.

By winning governorships and legislative seats across the
country this week, Republicans can redraw congressional districts
to enhance their new House majority in 2012.

Meanwhile, Proposition 20 will preclude a Democratic Legislature
and a Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, from offsetting that with a
partisan gerrymander in California. As governor previously, Brown
approved a very partisan redistricting following the 1980 census
that shifted a half-dozen congressional seats from Republicans to
Democrats.

If it works as Schwarzenegger and other advocates hope,
independent redistricting will lead to fewer locked-in Democratic
or Republican districts and more that could be won by either party,
thus moderating the ideological polarization now evident in both
the Legislature and the congressional delegation.

But it's just a theory; the reality remains uncertain.

DAN WALTERS writes for the Sacramento Bee. Comment at
nctimes.com or contact him at 916-321-1195.